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Thursday, February 07, 2008

Lust

Since you've all had a few days to peruse some of my favorite bloggers in the previous post, I guess I'll post something new. Yesterday was kinda crazy. Bought a North Carolina auto insurance policy, worked in the writing center, ran some errands with B., taught a night class, and finally got to come home, shower, have dinner, and I was passed smooth out by 10:45. You can call me Animal. Party Animal.

Today is a migrainey day (again), so I'm taking it easy and being an enabler. I'll tell you about some of the newest items on my Amazon wishlist.

The Kindle. I have a serious case of gadget lust since April posted about hers at Estella's Revenge. Another bookish friend shouted the wonders of yon Kindle in a discussion group, and now I can hardly contain myself. Too bad I don't have $399 to throw around at the moment. I hope beyond hope that the price falls a bit in the near future and I can snatch one up. The books are cheaper, I'll be killing fewer trees with my bookish obsession, and that little puppy is way portable. Good plane reading, anyone? I'll probably be traveling to TX during the summer at some point, and I have a conference in San Antonio in November. Just think of all the books I could hoard in one little gadget! The mere thought makes me quake.

*use imagination to insert cover of Best American Nonrequired Reading, 2007 here*

Yeah, Blogger is being putzy. Anywho, I first saw the Nonrequired Reading 2007 in Books-a-Million recently, and what an intriguing idea! I'm a sucker for the yearly "Best ofs" anyway (short stories, essays, comics, etc., etc.) and what's better to a moody, finicky, noncommital reader than a collection of NONREQUIRED READING?! Not much, I can tell you that fo 'sho.

*use imagination to insert cover of A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You here*

In my neverending search for quality short stories, I ran upon Amy Bloom. Well, I ran upon her name, really. I haven't read any of her stuff yet, but everywhere I go that mentions really good short story writers mentions her. The blurb from Amazon to describe Blind Man:

It was Henry James who first claimed the imagination of disaster, but in Amy Bloom's stunning second collection, she appears to have inherited the mantle. Most of the characters in A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You are pursued by at least one of the biological furies: cancer, miscarriage, Parkinson's disease. And even those with their health intact tend to be sick at heart, having run the gantlet of family life and suffered what the military men like to call friendly fire. Yet the effect of these brilliant stories is anything but dreary. Instead they produce an odd sense of elation--Bloom somehow persuades us that her characters will continue under their own steam long after we've closed the book, and she alternates hope and hopelessness in exactly the right, recognizable proportions.

*use imagination to insert cover of Artists in Exile, by Joseph Horowitz here*

This is a little goody I spotted in the NY Times Book Review a week or so ago. I've always been interested in artists' and performers' lives, and this book chronicles the "intellectual migrations" of thousands of artists and thinkers from Europe to the U.S. in the early 20th century. Some notable names: Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, and Marlene Dietrich just to name a few.

So, tell me you wonderful enablers. What are you lusting after?

I've had about all I can stand of the slow writing center computer, so I'm going to finish The End of America (thoughts coming) and grade some tests. Yeehaw!

14 comments:

I kind of want a Kindle too - I keep thinking this would make my yearly travels to Germany so much easier as I wouldn't have to pack all those books! But it's pricey so no Kindle.What am I lusting over? Oddly enough, clothes. I feel like my closets are filled with old things and I want new, cute dresses and shoes and baubles :)

Oddly, I saw that gadget a while back and thought of YOU! How crazy. It does look very fun. I too am in lust after quite a number of electronics but I won't go into too much detail. I'll only speak of the new Mac Book Air! ahhh, when I see the commercials I want to scream. BUT, alas I don't have a few thow lying around. Oh well. Maybe one day when I hit the lottery - or when I start playing, you know how that goes!

I love the whole idea of the Kindle, but am a bit wary of it yet. There are a few problems with it and I've heard that it uses propriety software so you'd be stuck with a kindle for ever. And I'm not sure if it'll open other formats.

I'm not really a gadget-y sort of person, so I will likely forgo anything like a Kindle for a good while, but I recently heard my library has two of them. I haven't seen them, and I'm not sure how they are going to implement them, but it should be interesting to see how they work out.

Lately I really feel like moving. I'm tired of the layout of our apartment and the area a bit too. No green! We probably wouldn't move until next year but I can start to dream.The new MacBook Air is also very lustworthy!

What am I lusting over? More time to read!! I'm really beginning to question this working-in-a-bookstore thing. I continue to bring home tons of ARCs and comp titles but never seem to have the time to read them!